Current Chemistry Letters 9 (2020) 161–170 Contents lists available at GrowingScience Current Chemistry Letters homepage: www.GrowingScience.com A theoretical investigation of the flurbiprofen methyl ester isomerization as the main step in the photopreparation of anti-inflammatory medicine (S)-flurbiprofen: A DFT study Saba Hadidia*, Mohammadsaleh Norouzibazazb,c and Farshad Shiria aDepartment of Inorganic Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran bNano Science and Technology Research Center, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran cDepartment of Organic Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran C H R O N I C L E A B S T R A C T Article history: In order to investigate the isomerization and conversion mechanism of the advantageous and Received October 8, 2019 widely used nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicine flurbiprofen, the hybrid density Received in revised form functional theory was applied. According to the results, the rearrangement reaction of (R)- November 21, 2019 flurbiprofen to its (S)-enantiomer happens in a [1,3]-hydrogen shifts with inversion of Accepted February 18, 2020 configuration at chiral center C14. From the calculated energies, it can be understood that the Available online rate-limiting step in the flurbiprofen isomerization is the excitation of (R)-flurbiprofen methyl February 18, 2020 ester in its initial form to the first excited singlet state S1 at λ=243.91 nm. we studied this Keywords: process by scanning the C14-H17 distance for the excited singlet to get more information about Flurbiprofen the process of isomerization occurring upon excitation. The results of calculations R/S isomerization demonstrated that the isomerization process should pass through a ~71 kcal/mol barrier. The DFT calculation (S)-flurbiprofen methyl ester is more photostable than its related (R)-enantiomer. This issue Conversion mechanism can be attributed to the -1.50 kcal/mol of thermodynamic stability of the (S)-flurbiprofen methyl ester. © 2020 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Flurbiprofen, racemic 2-(2-fluoro-4-biphenyl) propionic acid is a famous orally effective nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), which is widely used for the treatment of pain due to rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, ankylosing Spondylitis, and acute gouty arthritis.1, 2 This medicine has attracted a lot of attention because of its important advantageous properties. The analgesic effects of this medicine are mainly attributed to the inhibition of the enzymatic activity of cyclooxygenase, which leads to the suppression of prostaglandin synthesis.3-5 Due to this analgesic effects, flurbiprofen can also be utilized in short term alleviation of post-operative pain in dental patients.5 Experiments indicated that flurbiprofen and other NSAIDs can reduce the relative risk of colorectal cancer after two or more years of continuous use.6, 7 Several investigations revealed that flurbiprofen like other clinically significant medicines shows stereoselectivity in action and disposition.8-11 It means that different * Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Hadidi) © 2020 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved. doi: 10.5267/j.ccl.2020.2.002 162 enantiomers have various impacts on pharmacokinetic processes.12-14 Like other NSAIDs, such as ibuprofen and fenoprofen, the drug with a chiral center, can inhibit cyclooxygenase only by its (S)- enantiomer. Another enantiomer of flurbiprofen ((R)-flurbiprofen) exhibits minimal inhibition cyclooxygenase activity.15 Unlike the other NSAIDs,16 flurbiprofen does not undergo configuration inversion and the (R)-flurbiprofen is not epimerized to the (S)-enantiomer in humans.17 Enzymes have a significant role in determination the enantiomers of organic synthesis. One of the enzymes that can catalyze the reactions in aqueous solvents in highly enantioselective level is Candida rugosa lipase (EC 3.1.1.3).18, 19 The enzymes not only are able to hydrolase soluble and insoluble substrates in aqueous conditions, but also can be used widely in organic synthesis.20 The current work aims to investigate the isomerization mechanism of racemic flurbiprofen by employing the quantum chemical method. In this study, in order to overcome the theoretical 50% limit in the resolution of racemic medicines, the facile conversion of racemic flurbiprofen into its (S)-enantiomer by dynamic kinetic resolution (DKR) conditions was employed.19 The most common transformation-catalyzing lipases were employed to study the kinetic resolution of racemic flurbiprofen.21 As illustrated in Figure 1, the computations were carried out by considering esterification of flurbiprofen to relating flurbiprofen methyl ester. Fig. 1. Fisher esterification of racemic flurbiprofen in methanol at 40 °C for 5 h 2. Results and discussion (R)-flurbiprofen undergoes an energetically favorable second ground state rearrangement to generate (S)-flurbiprofen (Fig. 2). Fig. 2. R/S-flurbiprofen enantiomers The process route leading from (R)-flurbiprofen to (S)-flurbiprofen corresponding to the inversion of stereochemistry at C14 have been identified.22 The reaction pathway of connecting (R)-flurbiprofen methyl ester to (S)-flurbiprofen methyl ester is illustrated in Fig. 3 with details in Table 1. The used relative Gibbs free energies are also listed in Table 2. Based upon this pathway, the R isomer undergoes inversion of the stereochemistry or retention of configuration to generate the (S)-flurbiprofen or reformation of the primary (R)-flurbiprofen methyl ester. The full geometry optimizations along this reaction pathway were carried out at the DFT level by employing the PBE0 level of theory.16 The calculations result depicted that the energy of (R)-flurbiprofen methyl ester is 1.50 kcal/mol higher than (S)-enantiomer. The first step in the isomerization of flurbiprofen is the excitation of flurbiprofen methyl ester in its initial form to the first excited singlet state S1 since the symmetry of [1,3]-hydrogen shift from C14 to O18 is forbidden.23-25 S. Hadidi et al./ Current Chemistry Letters 9 (2020) 163 Fig. 3. Relative Gibbs free energy (in kcal/mol) diagram for the photochemical isomerization of flurbiprofen methyl ester in aqueous solution Table. 1. Bond length (in Å) for the photochemical isomerization of flurbiprofen methyl ester in aqueous solution Parameter Critical structure R R* TS1 RI RI* TS1' TS2 S C3-C14 1.521 1.521 1.472 1.477 1.477 1.472 1.48 1.519 C14-C16 1.529 1.529 1.531 1.513 1.513 1.531 1.516 1.527 C14-H17 1.093 1.093 1.57 - - 1.57 1.575 1.09 C14-C15 1.517 1.517 1.445 1.35 1.35 1.445 1.448 1.517 C15-O18 1.219 1.219 1.288 1.36 1.36 1.288 1.286 1.217 C15-O19 1.331 1.331 1.295 1.349 1.349 1.295 1.293 1.336 As is evident from Fig. 4, the UV spectrum indicated that the first vertical S1 excitation (HOMO to LUMO) occurs at λ=243.91 nm, with oscillator strength f=0.5776 and one at λ= 234.45 nm, with oscillator strength f=0.2194. This finding is in complete agreement with the orbitals demonstrated in Fig. 5 which shows that the excitation is of π → π* transition nature. Furthermore, an additional peak with lower oscillator strength (f=0.0140) was observed at λ=233.99 nm, assigned to HOMO-1 to the LUMO. Table. 2. Relative Gibbs free energy (in kcal/mol) for the photochemical isomerization of flurbiprofen methyl ester in aqueous solution Critical structure ΔG Critical structure ΔG R 0 RI* 100.23 R* 117.22 TS1' 70.94 TS1 70.94 TS2 71.64 RI 10.83 S -1.50 164 1.4x105 1.2x105 1.0x105 8.0x104 6.0x104 4.0x104 Absorbance (oscillator strength) 2.0x104 0.0 200 220 240 260 280 300 Wavelength nm Fig. 4. TD-PBE0/6-31++G(d,p) computed absorption spectra in the range 200-300 nm of the (R)- flurbiprofen methyl ester (black) and (E)-2-(2-fluoro-[1,1’-biphenyl]-4-yl)-1-methoxyprop-1-en-1-ol (red) As illustrated in Fig. 3 near the (R)-flurbiprofen methyl ester geometry, a transition state, TS1 corresponding to C14-H17 bond breakage has 70.94 kcal/mol higher energy than the optimized ground state (R)-flurbiprofen methyl ester. Since this process involves the migration of H17 from C14 to O18 is considered as a [1,3] Hydrogen shift.26 The Intrinsic reaction coordinates (IRC) were calculated at the PBE0 level to authenticate the transition state. Fig. 5. TD-PBE0/6-31++G(d,p) computed orbitals of the (R) and (S) flurbiprofen methyl ester and (E)-2-(2-fluoro-[1,1’-biphenyl]-4-yl)-1-methoxyprop-1-en-1-ol It can be concluded from the IRC calculations that this transition state leads to (R)-flurbiprofen methyl ester in one direction and to an E isomer region corresponding to a 1-en-1-ol in the other. In S. Hadidi et al./ Current Chemistry Letters 9 (2020) 165 addition, we used the similar calculation method to optimize the intermediate (E)-2-(2-fluoro-[1,1'- biphenyl]-4-yl)-1-methoxyprop-1-en-1-ol, where the methyl group is twisted by about 90° counterclockwise, relative to (R)-flurbiprofen methyl ester. Fig. 6. displays the optimized structures of both reactive intermediate (RI) and (R)-flurbiprofen methyl ester. Fig. 6. The optimized structures and bond length (in Å) of (R)-flurbiprofen methyl ester and intermediate (E)-2-(2-fluoro-[1,1’-biphenyl]-4-yl)-1-methoxyprop-1-en-1-ol From the comparison of RI with TS1 and (R)-flurbiprofen methyl ester, it can be seen that there are some bond length changes in geometries. The obtained results clearly demonstrate the elongation of the C15-O18 bond length (corresponding to hydrogen transfer) from 1.219 Å in the R ester to 1.287 and 1.360 Å in the TS1 and RI respectively.